296 TALKS ON " AT THE FEET OF THE MASTER "
all that we do in our sleep ? " That is one of the
reasons why you do not, because your vehicles are
not quiet enough. Very rarely, now and again, you
may get them quiet enough to bring something
through. But even then you distort it somewhat,
because the medium is not perfectly clear. It is like
looking at something through plate glass and then
through something cheap like bottle glass. You will
find that it altogether alters the proportion of things.
That is what happens to your various vehicles unless
they are perfectly strong. It is very difficult to get
them perfectly strong, to control your temper, nerves
and so on ; but it has to be done, and until it is done
you are not making the most of your force. You are
not doing all you can in the Master's service. If you
saw a few astral bodies for yourself, you would realise
at once that the wonder is not that people rarely
remember anything, but that anybody ever remembers
anything at all, considering the conditions.
When you have got these things calm, you can
work in the midst of disturbance and trouble ; but of
course it is a great strain to hold the bodies calm
under these conditions. It is so great a strain that
that some people cannot do it at all. Well, they
must gradually acquire strength. The Occultist, you
know, learns to work, as it were, on two planes at
once, to be partly out of his vehicles at the same time
that he is working on the physical plane, so that
while he is writing or speaking, he may at the same